7 comments:

Bee A You Tee Ful. Love the highlight on the right side eye. Subject's left eye.The nose highlight, especially as a thumbnail , has the protuberance of a small pimple. Don't know if you want that. Maybe take down the edging on the left side of the highlight. Great color. Really alive.

Tom, it's something I started as a project for Blair's dad + step-mother. Remember that big Carnavale painting I did on commission for them? I felt bad that they weren't over-the-moon (excuse the pun) about that one, so I wanted to give them a little bonus work to lessen the disappointment. Plus, at the time, I was working hard on my painting, having some misguided notion of becoming a portrait painter, and I had a photo of her dad and toddler half-bro that I thought could be turned into a Sargent-style portrait, (despite it being a blown-out flash-bulb shot, they both had good expressions--the smiling-but-not-a-toothy-smile expression).

So I stretched some nice linen and went at it. A few weeks later I set it aside when I wasn't happy with the likenesses and color.

That was six-plus years ago. I feel like this is much improved, tho' still not quite there. However, there was a (self-imposed) deadline of Friday--his birthday.

Funny postscript is I shouldn't have worried about it--I got the idea they didn't much care for it...

That's two strikes!

You can see the other part of the pic (the kid) on the Brush Pen Breakfast blog if you are so inclined...http://upby8.blogspot.com/